Andrew Rich Messalliance Red 09
This wine is made in the style of a classic Right Bank Bordeaux everyday red - sweet cherry and berry fruit combine with a most pleasant creme brulee/toasted sugar in the finish. Andrew ages this wine in American oak, and the characteristic chocolate and smoky vanilla notes show in aroma and flavor. Pair with ribs or burgers.
Messalliance is a blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 30% Merlot, and 10% Syrah. Andrew named it Mesalliance because he felt, back in 1997 when he first created this wine, that merlot was sort of a second tier grape. He's changed his opinion of Merlot but kept the cool name.
Ready to drink, it's classic Andrew, and classic Right Bank everyday red - cherry and berry fruit plus a hint of most pleasant creme brulee/toasted sugar in the finish.
Previous Vintage tasting notes
Andrew Rich says:
Those of you with a long memory will no doubt recall the M?salliances of yore. Way back when-I think the last vintage was the 2001-it was a Cabernet Sauvignon blend, and it got its name with the '98 vintage. I had been making Cab, but always with at least 75% Cab in the blend, so I could legally call it...Cab.
With the '98, however, I didn't meet the minimum requirement, so I had to come up with a name. Because I had blended in a bit of Merlot and because I thought of Merlot as an inferior grape, it seemed clever, if not commercially expedient, to name the blend "Mesalliance," in the sense of "marriage with a person of inferior social position." Since those days my thinking has changed. I lost interest in Cabernet, and I realized that I enjoyed the Merlot/Cab Franc blends of Bordeaux's right bank. And when I was offered some very nice Merlot from Red Willow Vineyard, I took it as a sign. (Technically the fruit is grown at their Les Vignes site just down the road, planted in 1990.)
While our fermentation protocol wasn't radically different (though I got a few pointers from a well-known Napa consultant from whom I buy used barrels), we tried something a little unusual when it came time to age the wine. We used a small amount of new American oak barrels.
Normally I find American oak to be too obvious, too caramel-ly, too...much. But with this Merlot, it really seems to work, fleshing out the middle while balancing the structure of the Cabernet Franc without entirely obliterating that grape's lovely perfume. And the Syrah? Well, I guess I could say it's there to ensure the blend's pedigree as a misalliance, but when we did our blending we found that it was just what was needed to knit the Merlot and Franc together into a seamless whole. Delicious now for its softness and fruit, the 2005 M?salliance should age well for several more years.
